In 1978, photographer Thomas J. Kelly III was the first journalist on the scene of a brutal and terrifying attack by a deranged man who fatally stabbed his entire family inside their East Coventry, Pa., home. His series of photos documenting the aftermath of the incident, which left the man’s wife and unborn son dead, earned the Pulitzer Prize for Spot Photography. Kelly discusses the situation and how difficult it was for the press who covered it.

On July 22, 1975, in Boston, a 19-year-old and her 2-year-old goddaughter were trapped in a burning building. A firefighter, Robert O’Neill, shielded them from the flames as a fire ladder inched closer. Then the fire escape collapsed. Although the woman died from her injuries, the infant survived. “Fire Escape Collapse” circulated around the world, leading to new fire escape legislation across the country and earning Stanley Forman the first of two Pulitzer Prizes for spot news photography.

Brian Lanker details the special bond he shares with his famous photo of childbirth, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, and discusses the stark contrast between his image and that year’s Spot News Photography winner of children being bombed in Vietnam.

In April 1969, racial tensions at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., came to a head on the premises of the student union building. Peaceful negotiations between administrators and students ended a 36-hour student takeover of Willard Straight Hall, but Steve Starr’s Pulitzer-winning photo of armed students leaving the building after the standoff brought national attention to the story, leading to campus reforms and legislative action.

On a sweltering summer day in Jacksonville, Florida, Electric Authority linemen were making repairs atop poles when a worker was hit with 4,160 volts of electricity. As he dangled from his safety belt, a fellow lineman breathed into him in an attempt to save his life. Photographer Rocco Morabito took pictures and prayed – and earned the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1951, the sight of an African-American player on an Oklahoma college football field was rare – and unwelcome. In a game at Oklahoma A&M University, Drake University’s Johnny Bright, one of the country’s best players, was repeatedly attacked on the field by his opponents and eventually had to be carried off with a broken jaw. The sequence of violent photos captured by Don Ultang and John Robinson caused a national outcry and earned the men a Pulitzer Prize.

One night in 1946, college student Arnold Hardy arrived home to hear firetrucks in the street at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta. He grabbed his camera and rushed to the scene, capturing the terrifying moment a woman, trying to escape the inferno, plummeted toward the street. She survived, and his photo garnered the Pulitzer Prize.

On June 8, 1972, AP Photographer Nick Ut was covering a battle in South Vietnam when napalm meant for enemy fighters fell instead on civilians. Ut captured harrowing scenes of women and children fleeing and won a Pulitzer Prize for a haunting frame of a naked 9-year-old who would come to be known as “Napalm Girl.”

Robin Hood served in Vietnam as an Army information officer and returned a photographer. At an Armed Forces Day parade in 1976, he caught sight of another veteran in the crowd whose sacrifice left him confined to a wheelchair. Hood captured the moment and earned the Pulitzer Prize.

During the Vietnam War, three photographers earned the Pulitzer Prize for now-iconic images of the war. In 1969 and 1973, the winning photos bluntly depicted the horrors of war; but the 1974 prize was awarded to Slava Veder, who captured the unbridled joy of a family welcoming home a soldier who had been a prisoner of war for six years in Vietnam.